It is time for Rice to come clean
The Governing Party had a terrible, terrible week.
Polls showed a dramatic decline in their standing across the whole nation. The many GOP scandals continued, with a major White House resignation, a Congressional guilty plea, new federal investigations opened into two more Members of Congress, and of course the Foley affair just kept going. North Korea exploded a nuclear bomb and our initial sanctions proposal was soundly rejected by the Russians and Chinese. With the violence in Iraq spinning to yet another awful level, we may have now come to the point of no return there.
Also brewing is a situation a little more complicated, but one that has enormous implications for Bush and his team. The publication of the Woodward book has brought to light a previously unknown CIA briefing of then National Security Advisor Rice on July 10th, 2001. At this briefing the CIA Director explicitly warned Rice that Al Qaeda was preparing to attack. Somehow, this very serious meeting was left out of the 9/11 Commission Report, and has never been mentioned by the Administration. (See more about this story in a previous post.)
Why does this matter? Because the story of the Administration and 9/11 has changed. We now know that they failed to respond to the USS Cole bombing; failed to heed repeated warnings from Dick Clarke; failed to heed repeated warnings from the CIA; failed to capture Bin Laden at Tora Bora; and we now know that somehow the 9/11 Commission failed to include this July 10th mtg despite George's Tenet under-oath testimony that it took place.
Tomorrow Sec. Rice goes on Fox News Sunday tomorrow. Think Progress has waged a smart campaign to offer up some questions for her. She of all people has a lot to answer for, for what we now know is that the Administration was amply warned about the Al Qaeda threat; did nothing about it; lied about what they knew for years; and somehow managed to keep some of the most damaging parts of the story from the official inquiry into 9/11 planning.
This is serious stuff. The main architect of this big lie about 9/11 is now the Secretary of State. She has repeatedly lied in public and under oath about the run up to 9/11. One of her current staffers was the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, was present at Tenet's testimony about the July 10th Meeting, and clearly kept it out of the report and from the Members of the Commission.
If she can't be trusted to level with the American people about something of this gravity, how can we trust her to continue with her job? It is time for Secretary Rice to come clean.
- Simon Rosenberg's blog
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